Conscious, Conscientious

Lammy and Zayza couldn’t afford a single second of hesitation. They had seen—or rather, not seen—how impossibly fast Raznizu could move.

But they also knew they couldn’t turn back into Fantasy Country. Their only salvation lay ahead.

Zayza grasped Lammy’s hand and tugged him along the old sidewalk. They sprinted together, barely slipping past confused pedestrians.

Through all the people and vehicles, Lammy spotted Raznizu beginning his pursuit. He only walked at first, before breaking into a steady jog that would come across innocent to any onlooker.

He’s trying not to make a scene, Lammy noted, already heaving from the sudden exercise. We can use that to our advantage and get away.

At the end of the sidewalk, he spotted a crowd gathering around some sort of pickup spot for transportation, under a blue sign. That was it: maybe if they could stay around a cluster of witnesses, Raznizu would be unable to act.

He attempted to match Zayza’s speed and steer them, but she was simply more agile.

“The…the crowd!” he gasped.

Zayza seemed to catch onto his intentions and veered towards the impatient group. Raznizu followed across from them at a distance, his eyes never shifting away.

They hurried to a stop in the middle of the crowd, earning a few irritated grumbles from those they bumped into.

Razinzu’s pace slowed: it worked.

If he can’t be caught attacking us, we’ll just stay around people, planned Lammy. That should be easy enough in a city like this.

But once he looked at Zayza, he realized he’d overlooked a massive risk. While they’d barged through the group of city folk, Zayza’s hood had slipped off.

Their earrings meant nothing now, and she was exposed.

Keep your cool, Lammy…he cautioned himself. Those guards didn’t recognize her. She might not be that well-known.

He nudged her arm.

“Your hood,” he whispered.

“Hm? Oh.”

She hurried to raise it back up.

“Hey, wait a second…” came a voice at the edge of the group.

“Yeah, I think you’re right!” agreed another.

Lammy and Zayza whipped around to see an elderly couple staring at them. The woman was pointing right at Zayza.

A third individual picked up on the commotion and followed their eyes. “Whoa…that girl looks just like Princess—”

“GO!” Zayza shouted.

They plowed through the rest of the crowd before anyone else would catch on.

“P—‘Princess?!’” Lammy repeated.

“I suppose!” came Zayza’s anxious reply.

Thoughts fired off in Lammy’s mind. Back in Tailpiece, Savannah’s father used to tell him and Deon old fairytales about princess and princesses who ruled over kingdoms.

Zayza was like that?

A screech pounded their ears— in their rush, they’d run straight onto one of the bumpy roads. They turned to find one of the bulky, wheeled vehicles had almost collided with them and came to a messy stop. A long, angry honk blared from the machine.

Lammy and Zayza darted to the next sidewalk. They turned to find Raznizu’s progress…

But he was gone.

Lammy held his breath. Had Raznizu retreated yet again?

“I would much prefer to do this the simple way,” came a low voice from behind.

Lammy and Zayza went pale, zipping around to find Raznizu right behind them, leaning against a brick building.

“No…” gasped Zayza.

“That dragon technique was outstanding, boy,” Raznizu admitted. “But now, it is imperative that you both come with—”

Lammy’s eyes glowed. Before he could even command his own powers, he felt a powerful weight scoop him up from underneath.

His dragon had returned.

Lammy and Zayza watched the ground leave their feet as the rainbow-colored dragon flashed into existence. They grasped onto it for dear life.

“This again…” Raznizu muttered from below. He sounded much more inconvenienced than enraged, watching them take off.

People on the streets shouted and pointed at Lammy’s soaring dragon. Soon it neared the height of the lower buildings.

“Let’s get out of here!” Zayza exclaimed.

Lammy nodded, but they both realized this was far from over: curving past the rooftops in their ascent, they spotted Raznizu once more. He zipped straight up a wall, and began chasing them from atop the buildings.

The dragon sped up on Lammy’s command, but they watched in fear as Raznizu gained on them. He hopped from roof to roof in a display of sheer athleticism, closing in after each leap.

But there was hope ahead: the dragon was fast approaching a park within the city, centering around a large pond. Raznizu would have no roofs to hop between, and the dragon would have adequate space to ascend into the sky safely.

As soon as they reached the park, Lammy commanded the dragon to pull up.

But suddenly they shook, and the dragon let out a pained, oddly human roar.

While the dragon spun in the air unevenly, Lammy caught a glimpse of the cause: Raznizu stood at the edge of the final building, with circular knives in hand.

“Keep your head down!” Lammy screamed to Zayza.

Another knife came spinning their way—but this one slashed through the dragon, as well, leaving behind a cartoonish and unrealistic hole in its wing.

The rainbow beast shook again, coming close to spinning out of the air. Lammy almost lost his grip as it whirled around unsteadily.

If he could do that this whole time, why didn’t he take us out when they were right on our tail in Fantasy Country? Lammy wondered. He had a clear shot!

He checked their descending height above the pond, and then the two holes in his dragon. So far, everything Raznizu had done seemed calculated. These knife attacks appeared too precise.

He’s…not aiming for us? Lammy realized.

Another knife came, and despite their increased distance from Raznizu, it still met its mark: straight through the dragon’s other wing.

This time, they began falling steadily towards the water.

“I can’t reimagine the dragon’s wings!” Lammy warned Zayza. “It’s too complex to do quickly—we’re gonna go down!”

With all of his willpower, he steered the weakened dragon towards the grassy edge of the pond, evening it out once they closed in. The people below darted in all directions to avoid this strange crash landing.

As soon as the dragon skidded against the ground, it vanished from existence. Lammy and Zayza braced themselves before sliding and rolling against the grass. Lammy lost all sense of direction, jamming his eyes shut until he felt his body stop.

Hearing hushed concerns all around, Lammy cautiously opened his eyes. He felt himself pulled into a sitting position, and found Zayza crouched beside him.

“You’re alright, Lammy,” she gasped quickly, clearly in an attempt to assure herself of it more than him.

“Yeah…” he said dizzily. Everything spun for a moment.

“Oh my gosh! Are you two okay? I’m a nurse!” came a woman’s voice. She rushed over to them. “You shouldn’t imagine such dangerous things in the city—are you okay?”

Lammy and Zayza nodded. His vision improving, Lammy knew they still had no time: Raznizu emerged from the streets down at the entrance to the park. He broke into a hurried jog once more.

“Zayza, we gotta go!” Lammy shouted, lunging back to his feet and grabbing her hand.

“Wait—‘Zayza?’” the nurse repeated. “Like, the princess? Are you—”

“Thank you! Farewell!” Zayza exclaimed, quickly matching and surpassing Lammy’s pace.

Crap—I’m already blowing it! Lammy realized.

“Where do we go?!” cried Zayza.

They both turned to find Raznizu had accelerated into a full-on sprint along the outside of the pond. They had mere seconds.

“WHERE DO WE GO?!” she wailed again.

Lammy considered trying to summon his dragon once more, but now he knew Raznizu could just shoot them back out of the sky. Desperate, he tugged Zayza towards the outskirts of the park. They plowed through a row of bushes and back into the streets.

Parked just before them rested an old, rusty blue vehicle along the side of the road. Smoke puffed from the driver’s seat, where a bulky man in a gray cap sat smoking his cigar.

It crossed Lammy’s mind to plead for a lift. Maybe this driver knew where Nightwood Valley was.

As soon as that thought emerged, Lammy felt something. Beholding the ugly vehicle, somehow, he felt at home. He could hear Deon’s laugh, like they were walking home together under the late afternoon sun.

“I think he can help us,” Lammy said, uncertain why he even believed that.

“Oh? The taxi?” Zayza asked.

“What’s a taxi?”

With no time for explanation, Zayza darted forward and knocked on the blue car door frantically.

Startled, the man removed his cigar and leaned over to roll down the passenger seat’s window. “Relax, relax missy. Where to?”

“ANYWHERE! A SCARY MAN IS CHASING US!!”

“Good Lord Almighty—get in, get in!!” the man shouted, stretching hurriedly to flip the lock on the back seat.

Zayza waved Lammy forward, opening the door for him. Even in their frightfully urgent circumstances, she held the door open for him to go first.

Lammy lunged into the back seat, immediately grimacing at the taxi’s smoky and musty odor. He crawled into the far seat so Zayza could tumble inside, slamming the door behind her.

The rubber back wheels screeched against the street, and the taxi zoomed straight into the busy road.

The driver steered frenziedly with one hand, still clutching his cigar in the other.

“Who’s after you two?! What am I driving you from?!” he called back.

“It’s a silver-haired man with—” Lammy started.

“HIM!!!” Zayza shrieked.

Just beside her, matching the car’s speed, ran Raznizu.

“YIKES!!” yelped the driver. He chucked his cigar out the window and grasped the steering wheel with both hands. “Hold on!”

They heard the tires screech again as the taxi revved forward even faster, narrowly avoiding another vehicle at an intersection. The speed pushed Lammy and Zayza against the back cushion of their seat.

In the mirrors, Lammy could still see Raznizu tailing them. But now he was falling behind, either unable to contend with the machine’s speed, or fatigued from sprinting across half of Conscious City.

Then the daylight reflected against something—multiple somethings—that emerged into Raznizu’s hands.

“He’s gonna throw more knives!” Lammy warned.

“This guy throws knives?!” repeated the driver. “What in the Multiverse did you do to piss him off that bad?!”

They all heard a clank against the street, right beside the car’s tire. Soon came another, and sparks flickered from the road.

The taxi was coming up on another intersection fast. Instead of pushing through it like all the others, the driver waited until they were just before it, and then the tires screamed as he skidded the vehicle and flung the steering wheel in a spinning frenzy. Lammy and Zayza screamed in panic as they almost took out a line of pedestrians.

The taxi straightened out around the corner just in time. It powered forward up a steep hill, creaking and croaking all along the way.

“She’s still got it,” the driver commented, patting his ancient machine.

Lammy checked what he could see of the mirrors again: this time, Raznizu wasn’t in view. No more knives came their way.

“Did…we finally lose him?” Zayza wondered.

“Knife-throwing ninja or not, he’s still just a human,” the driver said. “He’s gotta catch his breath eventually.”

The hill eventually evened out, and the taxi hurried along with much less effort. Whatever street they’d ended up on, it was much less busy.

“So uh…what’s this guy’s beef with you kids?” he asked again. “You say his pants were too tight?”

“It’s…a long story,” Zayza answered carefully. “One that we don’t even understand.”

“Well, I’m gonna guess the coast is clear for…”

They all heard another rumbling vehicle join the road from behind. Lammy and Zayza dared to peer out the back window.

Climbing to the top of the hill, a similar black vehicle rose up behind them and blasted forward. The spiky, silver hair in the driver’s seat was unmistakable.

The taxi driver caught sight of it from his mirrors.

“Knife-throwing ninja guy in spandex stole a car…” he observed. “Of course he did.”

The engine revved up once again, and they breezed past buildings like a blur. But they couldn’t shake off Raznizu’s black car. It seemed newer, and consequently much more agile.

“Any safe place I can take you guys to?! This isn’t gonna work out much longer,” the driver said. “Not to mention: I don’t exactly have a death wish!”

Lammy knew there was only one ‘safe place’ at this point—precisely where they were headed all along.

“Can you take us to Nightwood Valley?” he asked.

“‘Nightwood Valley?! That’s over an hour from here at full speed!”

“It’s the only place we have a chance!” urged Zayza.

“My cousin is there, and he can help us!” Lammy added, noticing the black vehicle grow bigger in the mirrors. “Please.”

The driver hesitated. They all flinched when a knife scraped the edge of the car and spun off the road.

“Alright, fine! I’ll do my best—no promises!” the driver said. “Here goes nothing!”

The taxi skidded off the main road abruptly, hopping over the edge of the sidewalk. The driver took them straight down an extremely narrow road between two buildings. Raznizu struggled to follow.

“My car may not be the fastest, but I bet it’s been down a lot more back roads than this guy!” exclaimed the driver.

He weaved them in and out of random streets Lammy hadn’t even spotted until they were on them. The driver endlessly honked his horn, and people dove out of the way in terror. An oncoming car spun out and almost took out a building as it slid off the street.

All the while, Raznizu kept on their trail. Though now that they were in a much denser, more populated area, he ceased throwing knives. Lammy hoped he’d finally run out.

“YES! Told you I know the back roads!” shouted the driver.

After seemingly infinite minutes of racing through the city streets, the taxi burst onto a grassy field with a fence of trees at the other end. It hurried towards a wide dirt road that began between two boulders: one bright white and the other pitch black.

Dust shot up everywhere while the taxi cruised past the boulders and trees, and accelerated down the open road. Small hills and green plains were all around, a stark contrast to the bustling city they had just fled seconds ago.

But the peaceful view was the least of their interests: to everyone’s dismay and expectation, the dreaded black vehicle emerged from the dust and joined them far behind. The taxi driver had shaken Raznizu off his tail, but not off his path.

And as they’d seen on the city streets, his car was faster.

The driver checked his mirrors, and then shook his head in defeat.

“I’m giving her everything she’s got…but this old thing ain’t gonna hold him off,” he uttered. His hand searched for his cigar nervously, before recalling he’d thrown it out the window.

It was mere moments before Raznizu had caught back up. The taxi rattled, barely able to keep up its current speed. They all watched in fearful silence as Raznizu’s knife-wielding hand emerged from his window.

Then they all heard a pop.

Lammy and Zayza shook in the back seat as the taxi leaned to one side and began sliding all over the road.

“He hit the tire!” the driver shouted. “It’s over!”

They were losing speed fast. Lammy’s heart pounded and his breath went shallow. Raznizu had them now, with no crowds to hide behind and no thin side streets to maneuver in and out of.

Wait…no buildings…which means no obstacles…he realized.

“Lammy, your eyes are glowing again!” Zayza exclaimed rapidly. “Your powers!”

“Right!!”

Before Lammy could even try, the car shook even more.

“WHOA!” yelled the driver.

Their view of the road disappeared before their eyes—now all they could see was the sky as the upward momentum pushed them against their seats.

An oddly human roar resounded from beneath.

Just like the previous two times, the dragon had appeared before Lammy could even consciously imagine it. But this time, it lifted the entire taxi on its back.

As the driver continued shouting, Lammy and Zayza turned to the rear window. Raznizu’s stolen car still followed, the distance between them growing by the second. The dragon ascended much slower with its much heavier load, unable to rise straight towards the clouds like Lammy had hoped.

Again, Raznizu’s hand emerged from the window.

“DUCK!” cried Zayza.

They knew he’d hit his mark: the dragon bellowed and the car rocked back and forth upon its back.

This couldn’t go on. Running from Raznizu got them nowhere all this time, and Lammy knew what that meant.

We have to get him before he gets us, he thought.

His eyes were still glowing from the stress. He could do this.

Lammy took a long, labored sigh, pressed up low against the seat. Then, he rose and locked onto his target.

Please work again, powers…he prayed.

“LET’S SEE HOW YOU LIKE IT, JERK!!” he bellowed, his voice cracking in the process.

He imagined one of Raznizu’s own knives in his head—at least, how it appeared while it would be spinning at them. The details were sparse, and Lammy knew nothing about the materials—a recipe for an Imaginer’s failure.

However this was his only chance, so he continued regardless. Lammy tried imagining the spinning knife into existence. It appeared—potentially as a mere illusion—floating just behind the dragon’s tail.

But in a moment, the sunlight began reflecting against its silver blades naturally.

It was real.

Lammy sent the knife swooping down at Raznizu’s car. He pulled it up just in time to avoid the ground, it and sunk straight into the vehicle’s lower front. A burst of fire rose and the car started swerving.

“You’ve saved us!” Zayza exclaimed. “That’s time number seven!”

Lammy blushed.

Then immediately, he went pale.

It happened too fast to react: another glistening knife spun into the sky like a shooting star, straight into the dragon’s left wing. Raznizu’s now flaming car spun out of control immediately after, spiraling off the dirt road and flipping down a grassy hill

Unable to withstand more destruction, Lammy’s fake dragon vanished. Immediately, they began falling out of the air.

Lammy felt his gut rise into his chest, and then all he could hear was a deep, metallic bang.